


You're All I've Got

by ShipInTheOcean



Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: Angst, Assassin's Creed II, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-17
Updated: 2014-04-20
Packaged: 2018-01-19 18:55:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1480423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShipInTheOcean/pseuds/ShipInTheOcean
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It all made sense now, but in the most painful way possible."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry the chapters are quite short and I'm still in the process of writing but I'll upload as often as I can :) Thank you for reading

It had come upon him during his training.

Desmond liked to take an hour or two out of his Animus schedule to run around the warehouse a bit, scale the structures in the big building. It kept him physically healthy, especially since his job mostly consisted of sitting on his arse all day, he was glad to get some exercise in.

With feline expertise he had lunged off a raised platform and reached for a pipe running about a meter high from where he stood, his hands catching it effortlessly, swinging himself a full 360 degrees, swept his body outwards and landed with both his knees bent, feet flat and body unwavering, on the surface opposite. 

Just as a small smirk played over the scarred side of his mouth, a sharp bolt of pain ran its course through his spine and hit hardest on the right side of his gut. he doubled over, a yelp of agony released from his throat. The pain felt almost like he was aflame, but only in that one particular spot, and with no way to make it cease, it worsened till he was on his knees, the skin through his knees indented by the metal crosshatching of the ledge, but the assassin barely noticed. He screamed with the frustration of not being able to stop or even try to handle the situation through how badly it hurt. What had he done to himself? The question was quickly expelled from his mind as another jolt made its way through his body. Now he was on his back, his eyes blurry with tears. How the fuck did this happen was the burning question. He raised his hand to his face, and saw that his fingers were coated in red... He was definitely hurt but that still didn't explain why...

He started to notice that his surroundings were disintegrating into little white shards, like triangles. Eventually they vanished too, and the pain with it. As his mind tried to process what was happening, he realised that his body felt different and that his clothing was heavier. A pair of strong hands breached each arm from movement. Instinct told him to struggle, to fight, but what against? Whispers of distant faces stared at him, but there was one profile in particular that was clear to Desmond. Al Mualim. It had to be.

His voice sounded loud and clear and powerful in... Where were they? Outside Assassin headquarters, near the training grounds. Al Mualim continued to speak, and as he did the cogs in Desmond's mind worked.

What is he saying?... Different language... He's angry... God... Am I Altair again... But... I finished his memory... What do I do... What do I-

His erratic thought pattern was suddenly cut off as the pain was anew in his gut. He remembered this. It all made sense now, but in the most painful way possible. He tried desperately to call for help, but English was foreign in the mouth he was possessing, so all he could do was scream, his tongue lead, like in a nightmare.

"Des... Desmond... Can... You hear me? Desmond? DESMOND!!" Familiar voices started to ring clear in his ears. Was it his mind playing tricks? The pain mounted and mounted, as did the volume of the voice calling his name. The panic and confusion suddenly crested, and with one last whine of desperation, he passed out.


	2. Chapter 2

"He's gonna be alright, Shaun."

Desmond lay on his mattress, whimpering and sobbing. Every few seconds his face would twist in pain and a new sweat would break on his forehead. Sometimes he'd even scream someone's name. Malik, most often, Leonardo too, but never Shaun.

He, Lucy and Rebecca were supposed to be taking shifts watching the fitful man, waiting for him to wake while the others slept, but the Englishman refused to leave his side. He had bit his fingernails to the wick, and the skin around them till it bled, but could not quench the worry inside him.

"I knew he had been in too long... But he hadn't had symptoms of the bleeding effect for so long, I thought he'd be okay... It's all my fault." It was supposed to be Rebecca's shift, and she'd been sitting in perfect silence for the last hour or so, but her own worry for her colleague was starting to build too, and she had to say something before she began to panic, and there was no room for that then.

"Yeah, it looks like that, doesn't it?" He tried to snap at Rebecca, but all the sharpness had dissipated from his voice, and now all that was left was a raw and broken imitation of Shaun. He moved himself away from the shamed female to Desmond's bedside, where he wove his pale fingers through tan ones. They gripped him hard as a new wave of pain crashed through the assassin. This time his entire body went stiff and flat as a board as he arched and screamed in agony. Blood welled in crescents where Des' fingernails had dug in too deep, but Shaun barely noticed. All he could do was watch in horror at what he saw in front of him.

(Sixteen... He hadn't come back from it...)

Desmond's going to be fine...

(It's been 6 hours...)

Desmond's strong, he'll be fine...

(He doesn't look fine...)

Desmond's going to be fucking dandy, he'll wake up with a shit-eating grin and it'll all be one big joke...

(What if he dies...)

Shaun couldn't quell the voice rising and rising in his mind. The man below him wailed and cried out. 

"SHAUN!" 

"Des...? Des can you hear me?" Desmond had begun to sob so loudly that even Shaun had begun to cry silently. The assassin's face was red, tears falling down his cheeks as he screamed and screamed and screamed.

Rebecca had his other hand and was squeezing so tightly she was probably breaking his fingers.

"What are they doing to him?!" She yelled at Shaun, who was staring in desperation at the man he loved. "Shaun! Wake the fuck up, we don't need you passing out on us too!" He suddenly snapped back into reality with a shuddering gasp, his eyes shiny and spilling over.

Lucy came racing into the room.

"Is he okay?"

"What does it look like, you bint?! Desmond, you twat, wake up! There's not a scratch on you, it's all in your head, wake up, wake up!" They had tried hitting him, using water, but no one had tried shouting at him directly since the warehouse. Desmond's body relaxed as well as his face, but his eyes didn't open. "Wake up you fucker... Don't leave me here..." Shaun's voice lowered considerably. He sounded so defeated, so unlike himself, that both the girls became unsettled by the eerie silence that followed after, and then the sound of soft sobbing as Shaun finally gave up and left the room, the unknowing becoming to much for him to bear.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's short. And cheesy. I have no regrets <3

Escape.

That was what he prayed for, what was searing in his mind as he slipped in and out of the borders of time, until he was trapped in another ancestors memory where he was burned and tortured, stabbed and mutilated, over and over and over. His own body now felt heavy and dull as he drifted through an eternal darkness in between the present and the past. He was a nothingness, numb, broken.

Every thought he had was just a number of splintered fragments which he could not piece together. Every few seconds (minutes... hours... He thought to himself, all sense of time lost) another new inferno of disturbed nerve endings would strike hard as wounds thousands of years old would be renewed in his core.

...I'm dying...

With this new thought came no fear, no discomfort, but a final few clear thoughts.

... What is there to live for... I knew I would die eventually... I can't run forever... What is there to live for...

Bam! It hit him like a wave.

Shaun. Shaun was all he had left, and he was all Shaun had left. The only reason he was still here, why he had not given up, was because of that man. Damn him if he was going to let Shaun's trust go now. 

"Sh... Shau... Nngh... SHAUN!" He cried out as best he could, mentally struggling against the severity of the pain which was rising again inside him. He flailed uselessly, trying desperately to force himself back to the surface. Just as that wave crashed down, the lids of his eyes peeled open. It took all the strength in him to keep them open, but something was holding him, his soul and emotion, back and pressing him down into the abyss in which he was taken.

His body was awake, but Desmond was gone.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Easter! Thank you for reading :3

It had been almost 3 hours since Shaun had stormed out, and he still sat in the exact same spot. On Desmond's side of their (once) shared bed. His hands were clasped over his ears even though there was nothing to block out. He'd stopped crying a long time ago, but the ghosts of his tears still stung on his cheeks and every now and again he'd let out an involuntary sobbing noise. Breath still caught in a lump in his throat he'd settled for breathing out of his nose as he suffered an almost everlasting panic attack trying to sort his thoughts out.

It's going to be alright...

(But what if it's not...)

BUT WHAT IF IT'S NOT.

(Get your shit together for crying out loud)

NO IT'S DESMOND. IT'S DESMOND. IT'S DES.

(I'd die for him)

((Like he'd die for you))

Is it my fault...?

(Build a bridge you pathetic...)

SHUT. UP.

 

He let out a cry of frustration, forcing himself from his sitting position and throwing his fist into the neighbouring wall. His knuckles came back bloody and torn, bits of broken plaster wedged in his skin here and there. The wall had suffered a worse fate, large chunks still crumbling off, spreading its gaping mouth wider and wider.

Shaun gritted his teeth against the sharp sting, which still could not conquer the ache inside him. Where his heart and stomach were supposed to be there was a cold, barren space. What did he have left, if he didn't have Desmond?

"Shaun? Shaun!" A nagging voice in the back of his mind started to wake him up a little. Then a sharp hand swung itself at his face, snapping his head around and for a moment... he forgot.

"What the bloody hell was that for?!" He whined, rubbing his face with his palm and then wincing at the split skin of his knuckles. Then it all came back to him.

"You were completely out of it, I had to do something." There stood Rebecca, tall and defiant for a woman so small, and that was how Shaun came to realise he was on his knees. Something changed her profile... Pity, that was it. Did he really look that pathetic? "It's good news, honey. Desmond's waking up."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for giving you hope.


End file.
